


let me be your anchor (for you are already my sunshine)

by heihua



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen, Liverpepper's Kingdom Hearts Fanverse, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 10:54:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17486804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heihua/pseuds/heihua
Summary: Sora has a bad night.Cloud and his blueberry pancakes are there to help make it a better morning.





	let me be your anchor (for you are already my sunshine)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yourhandiheld](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourhandiheld/gifts).



It’s ten a.m. on a Sunday morning and Cloud’s making pancakes in the kitchen.

There are chocolate chips, strawberries and blueberries lined up and ready to be put into the batter. He’s heating up the skillet as he thinks about the remaining bread in the fridge and debates on whether he should pull it out to make french toast or let the kids use it to make their sandwiches for lunch tomorrow when he hears the tell-tale padding of feet down the stairs.

It’s Sora, yawning wide enough to swallow a basketball but definitely awake.

“This is a surprise,” Cloud comments as he puts a handful of blueberries into the pancake batter.

“Couldn’t really sleep,” Sora says through his yawn.

He shuffles tiredly across the kitchen floor in his key-shaped slippers (a gag gift from Vanitas many Christmases ago but Sora had loved it so much he started wearing them the moment he unwrapped them. Vanitas had never felt so defeated) to where Cloud is pouring the first batch of blueberry pancake mix onto the skillet.

Cloud glances over; Sora’s eyes are a little pink.

He runs a quick hand through Sora’s hair, smoothing out some unruly spikes. “Bad dream?”

“’S okay,” Sora lightly slurs. “Do you need me to help with anything, Pa?”

Cloud hums, spatula in hand as he begins to flip the pancakes. “Did you want french toast? There’s some bread in the fridge for it.”

Sora shakes his head. “Not really, but Roxas might; I’d bet he’d eat french toast every day for every meal for the rest of his life if he could.”

Cloud chuckles as he plates the first batch of pancakes. “If he does that, he’ll be going to the dentist for even more cavities.”

Sora makes a face. “Ugh, Roxas would definitely hate that. Maybe we should hold off on the french toast then.”

“Maybe,” Cloud agrees. “Can you start setting up the table then and putting away the ingredients? I’m done with them.”

“On it.” Sora tiredly salutes and lets out another jaw-breaking yawn before he begins shuffling about the kitchen, moving around and about Cloud as he gets plates from the cabinets and puts the flour, eggs and milk away.

Mostly focused on the pancakes in the skillet, Cloud still makes sure to watch Sora from the corner of his eye.

Sora doesn’t look anymore tired than he usually does on a Sunday morning after staying up late playing video games with Roxas but something. Something is off.

“Hey,” Cloud softly calls out, turning the heat off on the stove as he finishes making the second batch of pancakes.

He puts them down on the kitchen island where Sora sits, half-slumped over a blueberry pancake practically drowned in syrup. Sora loves the blueberry pancakes Cloud makes for Sundays. He’s asked for them every Sunday for breakfast since he was old enough to pronounce the words.

But Sora hasn’t even cut into his pancake, doesn’t even look like he wants to eat.

“Hey,” Cloud goes again, hand against the space between Sora’s shoulder blades. “Everything alright?”

Sora grins but it’s nothing but a performance of a smile that only manages to move the muscles of his jaw and nothing more. Cloud hadn’t realized how much of _Sora_ was put into all of Sora’s expressions until he sees what happens when Sora doesn’t.

“Yea, Pa! The pancakes are great, just like they always are.”

“I didn’t mean the pancakes,” Cloud says, voice still soft and hand not leaving Sora’s back. “I was asking you, Sora. Are you alright?”

The smile slips off Sora’s face. “I’m – “ He rapidly blinks his eyes, once, twice, three times. “I’m fine Pa.”

“Really,” he insists even when Cloud fixes him with a look. “At least, I’ll _be okay_ Pa. I promise.”

Cloud remembers Leon telling him about all the times Sora used to come crying to him after a nightmare, blabbering through tears about a world where Roxas didn’t exist and Leon and Cloud weren’t part of his family and darkness, _so much darkness_ and fighting.

According to Leon, he had stopped complaining about the dreams after he turned nine.

But that didn’t mean he didn’t stop having them.

“Okay,” Cloud goes, taking his hand off Sora’s back.

He reaches over for his own empty plate and uses it to cover Sora’s pancake.

“Pa, what – “

“Come on.” Cloud takes Sora’s hand, gently nudging him off the high stool. “Let’s go sit on the couch.”

“But Pa, your pancakes – “

“We can reheat them,” Cloud says, no big deal. His son would take priority over breakfast any day. “Come on, to the couch.”

Bewildered but not resisting, Sora follows Cloud to the living room.

They sit down on the couch and Cloud pulls Sora close, enough that Sora can turn his head and bury his face into Cloud’s shoulder. Which he does, without any prompting.

Cloud runs a hand through Sora’s hair, doesn’t say a word.

“Pa,” Sora gets out, after a minute of silence. “Is it okay that dreams can still be scary? Even though – even though I know they’re not real?”

Cloud continues to run a hand through Sora’s hair, slow and measured. “People can be afraid of a lot of things. Sometimes, for no reason at all.”

“Even Dad?”

Cloud resists the urge to smirk. “Definitely.”

“Really?”

“Really,” Cloud affirms with a single, light kiss to the top of Sora’s head.

Sora hiccup-giggles and lets himself relax into Cloud’s side. Cloud never stops running his hands through Sora’s hair, not until he feels Sora shift and twist so he’s no longer buried in Cloud’s shoulder.

His eyes are still a little pink but there are no tear tracks down his face. But when he smiles, Cloud sees all of Sora in that smile and Cloud smiles back because it’s impossible not to.

“Thanks Pa,” Sora says, voice warm and soft.

“Anytime.”

 

* * *

 

 

(Later, when all four of them are sitting down for breakfast, Cloud watches Sora cut into his favorite blueberry pancakes and eat them with gusto even though they’re an absolutely soggy mess lost to the syrup they were in.

Sora catches his eye and smiles with a mouth stuffed full of blueberries and syrup and pancakes. “Still the best, Pa!”

“Sora, don’t talk with your mouth full,” Leon admonishes from next to Cloud and Cloud has to hide a smile behind his mouth as Roxas begins to complain about Sora getting spittle on his plate.)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm more than ten years late to the fandom but y'all I love, LOVE, LOOOOOOOVE [ Liverpepper's KH family AU. ](http://liverpepper.tumblr.com/) Like, even before I started playing the games I absolutely adored the AU it was the cutest thing!!! And I finally got my ass to write something for the AU but only with Cloud and Sora because 1) Leon and Roxas' characters are kind of ????? to me???? and 2) I just finished playing the part in Kingdom Hearts 2 where you get to fight with Cloud in Hollow Bastion and that Did Things to My Heart so this is the result.


End file.
